We need a voting system of proportional representation. Thoughts?

[KitKat1985]

Looking at the election voting statistics yesterday, what is really apparent again is that our 'first past the post' voting system is completely failing people versus a proportional representation system.

Look at the vote stats:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50779901?fbclid=IwAR1FshPtsgWymKc7aiYu2kLDL_zMvlUU8-GpB2xEwCyVUz9-o3sFQhyGCr8

In a nutshell, just over 43% of people voted conservative. If you combine the figures for people that voted Labour, Lib dem, SNP or Green you get nearly 50%. In a nutshell, that means the majority of people voted for left wing parties, and yet left wing politicians are now only now a minority in government. No wonder so many people were pissed off on results day. Hardly very democratic is it? Our current voting system is no longer fit for purpose now that multiple political parties can be voted for, and we should move to a system of proportional representation. Thoughts?

FPTP delivers stable government, a close level of accountability between MPs and voters (no bland “party list” bods) and doesn't give tiny irrelevant parties (like the Lib Dems) an influence disproportionate to their size. It has its flaws but IMO we should stick to what we’ve got.

Yes we do. FPTP is ridiculous.

I live in NI we have PR in the assembly and when they can actually be bothered to form an executive the needs of individual constituencies are well represented.

I agree and have held this view for years. Personally like the form the Irish use, as you can consider representation beyond party as you have several MPs. I am represented by someone who has never had a family for example- I am sure many people on this forum would like more politicians who have the experience of a young child (and unlike Jacob Rees-Mogg, of changing nappies).

and doesn't give tiny irrelevant parties (like the Lib Dems) an influence disproportionate to their size

1 person in 8 voted for the Lib Dems.

Does that make them irrelevant?

fptp is terrible but I would hate to have a simple list-based PR system. with a list system the central party puts their candidates in order of priority and it becomes impossible for constituents to vote out an awful individual who scores high on party crony points and also impossible to vote in someone who is a bit of a maverick within their party.

I am also aware that if we had PR in Thursday's election we would have 10 MPs for the Brexit party. PR has its own problems too.

I do think STV would be far preferable to FPTP because it gets rid of tactical voting and you get to find out what people genuinely support.

I live in an area where the sitting MP has such a huge majority that I effectively don't have a vote. it is very dispiriting.

The LDs were the party with the biggest increase in vote share this election, with no more seats to show for it.

It's also wrong that people feel they can't vote for a party whose policies they actually support because they feel they have to vote for party they don't particularly support just to try and keep an even worse party from winning. Smaller parties would probably get a bigger share of the vote of voters felt that voting for them would actually be meaningful.

Looking at the statistics of an election run under first past the post is meaningless.

People vote DIFFERENTLY depending on the voting system in place at that time...

in my constituency no one votes Labour.

They vote Tory or they vote Lib dem to keep the Tories out. Under a PR system, people would vote Labour. This would also have a side effect of reducing the Lib Dem share of the vote.

You cannot extrapolate from one system and say it would mean another system would be better.

I like the Scottish Parliament system of a combination of fptp and pr.

You can see who is on the party list in your region before you vote so if you don’t want them dont vote for them!

I wonder what the difference is in polls between:

Which party represents your views vs which party will you vote for locally?

Strictly, you can't extrapolate from current voting patterns to say how much representation each party would have.

It would still be fairer.

And if other countries can still be effective and successful despite PR then it is clear that PR does not mean ineffective government ( or else it proves that government is irrelevant )

Absolutely not. Hung parliaments where everything is watered down and nothing really gets achieved - no thanks.

We had a referendum for a form of PR in 2011 in which nearly 70% voted no. I don't see another referendum happening for a very long time.

1 person in 8 voted for the Lib Dems.
Does that make them irrelevant?

How many of those voted LibDim because they dislike Corbyn and Momentum? Take those away and they are irrelevant.

...Then political parties are not mentioned on the ballot paper.

Putting political parties on the ballot paper is a comparatively recent thing. 1970s, I think. Might not be a bad idea to revert to not having them, then people would at least have to make an effort to look up the candidates before voting.

FPTP might not be perfect, but I think it's better than the alternatives.

The conservative government in this election got a similar share of the popular vote as Tony Blair did in 1997- the difference being that Labour had more seats and thus a bigger majority because of the different sizes of the constituencies involved. It goes both ways.

For what it’s worth I do think FPTP isn’t particularly fair, but I don’t think in terms of the three (or two?) major parties in England there’s a great advantage or disadvantage either way. Scotland is over represented in terms of MPs vs population. As a PP said, people vote differently in different systems, I expect a PR system for this election would have resulted in more votes for the Brexit party.

But then you’d end up with constant hung parliaments or tiny majorities which wouldn’t be great either. Coalition governments aren’t ideal either. Can you imagine a coalition between greens, labour and, Lib Dems? Maybe they just need to narrow margins in constituency sizes (currently they vary by about 30,000 which is proportionally quite large as small constituencies are around 60,000).

How many of those voted LibDim because they dislike Corbyn and Momentum? Take those away and they are irrelevant

And how many Conservative voters or Labour voters are actually Lib Dem supporters who voted differently because they didn't want Corbyn or Johnson in?

The truth is that you can't tell if someone actively supports a party by the number of votes they get in a FPTP system.

We do know that 1 in 8 people voted Lib Dem. There could be more Lib Dem supporters out there but they might have voted tacticaly. And people could have voted Lib Dem because they voted tactically.

So you can't say anything about how relevant they are - or dismiss them as irrelevant.

Other countries work with "hung" parliament. ( probably stops the most rash choices )

I think we do need electoral reform but PR won't work for everyone. For example there are only 5 million people in Scotland so it really wouldn't be fair. It would have to be each country within the UK would have PR and elect a certain number of MPs or something like that.

How about a system that combines the 2? In Denmark there are 135 seats that are up for grabs in consituencies, and then there are 40 which are allocated proportional to the vote. Plus 2 from Greenland and 2 from the FairIsles. That way you'd get to keep your local bod (which I have to say I think is a massive point in favour of first past the post) but every vote would count.

No we don't. You end up with almost all the parties having some MPs, including minority parties that you wouldn't want eg. Brexit or very far left parties. Very often this means a hung Parliament with no power, and frequent general elections.

Very often this means a hung Parliament with no power, and frequent general elections.

Or minority parties having a disproportionate amount of influence, as the bigger parties make deals to stay in office. If we'd had something other than FPTP in the last few elections, UKIP would probably have had a good few MPs. Anyone here think that would have been a good thing, in the event of a hung parliament?

OP I completely agree with you. It would be a much fairer system, and at least every vote would genuinely count. Maybe more people would go out a vote?

I voted in favour of reform in the referendum. But the majority didn't so we are stuck with the current system for a while yet.

Coalition governments aren’t ideal either.

Or perhaps they are better because they require consensus which results in more nuanced policies with broader appeal. UK governments aren't used to consensus building but IMO it would be better.

UKIP would probably have had a good few MPs.
Instead the Tory party basically became UKIP/Brexit Party so as not to lose power, I'm not sure how that's a better alternative?!

Just to weigh in with a reality check, this has been an issue since my DM was grumbling about it in the 1950s when she started voting. She passed away in 2017.